Grasshoppers face Nuneaton

After a disappointing 49-33 defeat away to Leicester Lions, the Preston Grasshoppers face top of the table Nuneaton this Saturday.

Grasshoppers, who now sit 8th in the National Division Three Northern League, face Nuneaton who have won their last 11 matches in a row and have not lost since the 1st of November at home to second place Caldy.

The Grasshoppers, who despite conceding 49 points, picked up a bonus point against Leicester and will not be looking for a repeat of their 46-22 defeat they suffered when they travelled way to Nuneaton earlier in the season.

Confidence

The Warwickshire side come to Lightfoot Green full of confidence after a magnificent season and beat Bradford and Bingley last week. The Grasshoppers will also have to contend with the form of Brook Davies who capped a man of the match performance against Bradford with two tries. The boot of Huw Thomas will also be of concern to Grasshoppers head coach Alex Keay after he contributed five conversions and two penalties at the weekend.

Preston, who have now lost three of their last four matches, come up against a team who have conceded the fewest points in the whole league. The Grasshoppers’ poor defence will have to be improved after least weeks dismal performance against the Lions to ensure there is no repeat of the Nuns’ win earlier in the season.

With Preston only having five games remaining this season against difficult opposition, Keay can not afford any repeat of the indiscipline his side have encountered over the past few weeks.

Gameplan

Looking ahead to this weekend’s match, Keay, who has just agreed to stay on at Lightfoot Green for two more years, said: “We need to be more disciplined than we were last week, and not just to the referee, we have to be more disciplined to our game plan. But obviously we just need to go out their and win.

“Brook Davies was exceptional when we played them (Nuneaton) earlier in the season and we need to cut the ball off to him. We have got a game plan to stop him from punishing us. But we just need to go into the game with the right attitude, we have got a few sore bodies from the Leicester match, but everyone should be fit for the weekend.

“Fail”

“I was not impressed with the defence at the weekend and that is something we’ve been working on in training to make us water tight, but to be honest we lost our playing pattern against Leicester and gave them too many opportunities. Our attack was also part of the failure, we failed to prepare in some areas, and so we prepared to fail.”

The Grasshoppers will face local rivals Fylde in the Lancashire cup Final on April the 13th after they defeated Broughton Park in the Semi Final 41 -10 last week.

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